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Jack Pickleman, MD
Maywood, Ill

Arch Surg. 1998;133:377.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

This reviewer always gets a bit uneasy when a group of clinicians and radiologists team up to tout a new diagnostic procedure for an old disease. There now exist dozens of articles in the surgical literature proclaiming the clinical and economic advantages of the performance of ultrasonography, barium enema, nuclear medicine scans, and laparoscopy in the treatment of patients with suspected acute appendicitis. The present article presents a persuasive case for the use of CT scanning in patients with signs and symptoms insufficient to warrant emergency department discharge or appendectomy. Of the 149 patients studied, 52 underwent immediate appendectomy; 97, or nearly two thirds of the group, were "equivocal" and underwent CT scans. This seems like a very high percentage of equivocal cases, suggesting to me that a bit more clinical rigor might have been exercised in the management of these cases. Having said that, I must . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Is There a Role for Abdominal Computed Tomographic Scans in Appendicitis?
John G. Schuler, Michael J. Shortsleeve, Richard S. Goldenson, Jeanette M. Perez-Rossello, Robin A. Perlmutter, and Amy Thorsen
Arch Surg. 1998;133(4):373-377.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT